Although the rootkit was just a proof of concept (which is usually enough for a white-hat researcher), it does demonstrate that you can (with proper skills, tools and lots of patience) reverse-engineer IOS, write your own code and insert it into IOS image.

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8 comments:

There is another opportunity to mess up with Cisco routers - the rommon upgrade. Personally I think that the factory partition can also be "upgraded" if patched IOS allows it. Are you interested in exploring this area? :)

On the other hand, I was bitterly disappointed by the lack of coverage from the "industry press".

It's comforting to see my own feelings mirrored in your post. I was beginning to wonder how many people were paying attention to this.

Also, in regard to the Full Disclosure post you linked to... The 'n3td3v' character is a well-known and widely ignored self-promoter in the infosec community. His/her latest conspiracy is par for the course.

The author

Ivan Pepelnjak (CCIE#1354 Emeritus), Independent Network Architect at ipSpace.net, has been designing and implementing large-scale data communications networks as well as teaching and writing books about advanced internetworking technologies since 1990.